


Felt the world change

by Eluvian



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: After Trespasser, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-17
Updated: 2015-12-20
Packaged: 2018-05-02 00:58:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,776
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5227778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eluvian/pseuds/Eluvian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Knowing that her lover's plan is to destroy the world Frestiehla is trying to find a way to stay sane, but it's not easy. Especially if her friends keep on leaving her... Cole, a spirit who she developed a very good relationship, is returning to the Fade, leaving her behind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Reflection

**Author's Note:**

> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ER7qSRLbpp4
> 
> After playing a game, every song I listen to reminds me of it. Every one of them. Plus, Trespasser broke my heart and left me very unsatisfied. Plus, we like mirrors. Don't we?

"A hug is the perfect way to hide your face"  
The Doctor

She was looking in the mirror. But what she saw on her face didn’t reflect her feelings. Nothing did. Not really. She saw a tired face, a tired face of an elven girl, getting older, not that it mattered, since she was going to die before she could die... getting older, but still a girl, seeking something she was never going to reach.

She wanted to walk towards the mirror, then go through it, to somewhere very far away. But it was not possible, because in this piece of glass everything was linked to physics, and now she just wanted to smash it into pieces so that at least the voice of breaking and shattering could satisfy her a little.

The reflection stared back at her. Blue eyes, their glimering light faded out, not with age, but with experiences she sometimes wished she could forget. But it wasn't there. The raging storm inside her, it wasn't there. She was looking but cannot see. If she moved, it was like all the other times, like back then, when everything had seemed to be all right. When she talked, her voice was all the same, sounding confident, determined, because that was what everyone else should think, that she is strong and she wasn't going to give up. Nothing showed what was really inside her. Nothing in this world. Because, well, this world was just too real for demons. So her demons might just tear her apart.

Demons, who had once walked with them... She wondered what that could have been like. What had the mages been like? What had all people been like? How had people even slept, when the dreams had been walking, talking, flowing, existing around them? How had the landscapes looked like?

She was afraid. Afraid of the dark because her thoughts were heavy like she had to carry the whole world on her shoulders. She drowned in them, like in the scent of a million flowers, or closed under the frozen surface of a lake. In a world that was only a half, broken into two pieces, always chasing its other half but never finding it, always unsatisfied, without knowing what it lacks.

Finally a reason… to many things. Why this world seemed so…. wrong. Why did people have to spend half of their day sleeping… Oh, really. One half here, one half there, right? So it meant that in the old days you hadn’t needed sleep? Damn, she envied that really much.

And the answer had been there all the time. Right there, standing in front of her.

’I want to dream with you and wake up next to you.’ People had used to say things like this without really knowing the meaning.

She knew the meaning. She knew it very well. She remembered. That day – night, actually – felt always like it happened yesterday, maybe because it came to her mind too many times, thus she couldn’t forget it. She had re-lived that part of her life over and over, before going to sleep, maybe to make it easier to fall asleep instead of thinking about the tasks of tomorrow, and hoping that some miracle would occur and in her dreams maybe something… someone… could appear…

_Haven. Sheer, frosty wind against her skin, but not that it hurts. Haven. Remained rightful to its name. Pleasant memories. The beginning of it all. She remembers standing int he corner of that house and talking to Him… What about? She doesn’t remember. Many things. Probably about the other members of the Inquisition. Or, about her ambitions. Or, about how the world would be different if spirits walked among us. Damn, he actually asked her about that. She was so blind not to see the reason behind it. The more she thinks about it the more stupid she feels herself to be. Spirits walking alongside us. Like the old times. Exactly like the old times. When she first heard this concept it seemed like an overmuch dangerous imagination of a bold and anarchist mind._

_She walks beside him. He tells her he’d been watching her while she had been sleeping, recovering, examined the mark on her hand. She feels the excitement of the young girl wanting to be cared for, who she was a few years earlier, and who, apparently, she becomes every time she talks to him. Or listens to him. Because sometimes she doesn’t want to interrupt just so that she can hear his voice._

_A green flash appears on the sky, painting the clouds with an eerie and unnatural colour, breeding fear in hearts of commoners and the excitement of challenge in the brave. Isn’t that a bit of an egoistic thought? Not at all. She was the one who took care of it all. She was the one who saved thousands without them even knowing who was the one who saved them. But it doesn’t matter. Helping matters, being remembered does not. She is proud. That’s the only thing that is important. And he is proud too. His words encourage her. They are like no one else’s, needed, accepted and thanked. The words generate something in her she never felt before. It’s what keeps her going. Keeps her alive. Keeps her awake. And they will keep her awake when the worst times come, she knows that, and that safety is more than she could’ve ever asked._

_Felt the world change. She feels it too. Something in the air, something like a warmer wave of… something not quite belonging here, not coming from outside but from inside, fastening her heartbeat and breathing and making her walk a step closer to him, like approaching a flaming campfire having the promise of protection, a perfection that she has no right to see, to touch, afraid that the flames would burn her… (She has no idea she had been burnt long ago. She sees the mark on her left hand, knows its power, or at least trying to figure it out but she doesn’t know where it comes from.)_

_He attracts her like fire atrracts the moth._

_Their lips meet for a short while, a kiss born from a rush of emotions, then she withdraws, tries to flee, but a hand on her arm stops her, hands close behind her back, pull her closer and lips meet hers again. Floating, faithful, forgetting everything else. Feels like forever._

_This isn’t real._

_Then she wakes up._

How could you tell the difference between real and not real? This isn’t real… Was it not? It felt real. It felt hard to pretend it was not.

But it had been a long time ago now. Far away, just a memory. And she had bigger problems than her best memories seeming unreachably and unrepeatably far, one of them having the task to save this world. Because even if not tangibly, the changes already began to occur. Only slowly, like the clouds gathering slowly before a devastating storm.

Nobody had been paying attention and it made her sick. Days, weeks, months had passed by with the unsettled threat of some kind of doomsday coming, but no one seemed to have noticed. Life contined to flow in its normal way like it had been doing for a very long time. The only thing life did not realise is that it was not the normal way. It was the only possible way.

But for how long? Every single day costermongers carried their products to the market, every day a boy played with his little sister or a huntsman went on a hunt and leaves, flowers bloomed and died, the circle went on and on. But when would the day come when the laugh turns to ashes in one’s mouth as sheer despair fades happiness?

The worst part was that she could do nothing about it. Her incapableness of changing it was slowly but surely burning her out devouring her from inside like a strong, unstoppable disease. Because even if she’d had the possibility, she wouldn’t have been able to make the decision. If she would be standing there, right in front of the opportunity to save the world, but it would mean hurting Him… She would withdraw. She could never hurt him. She would rather choose her own death. That is, if she had a choice, which she, apparently, did not have, because the end of her days was sealed when she got the Mark on her hand, and, even before that, in His promise to bring back the world of her people…

A sudden sound of the door opening dragged her back to the floor of so-many-times-cursed reality, and she iped away her tears hurriedly. She hadn’t realised until now that she’d been crying, even while constantly looking into the mirror. She supposed she really might have seen something beyond that layer of glass. Or she just hadn’t been paying attention, lost in her thoughts, which she really should stop doing in order to avoid getting mad.

’I am sorry,’ Cole said, and when she turned her face she saw him wearing his hat as always , standing in the doorway in a strange, awkward position, striving to find a style to stand, to behave, in vain, because he always seemed somehow not belonging here, and was feeling out of place, but he didn’t care at all, because it didn’t matter. Other people barely saw him.

Frestiehla realised that wiping away her tears was completely meaningless. It mattered about as much as trying to protect your eyes from the sun by placing a piece of glass in front of them. (Like eyeglasses. Although they had a different purpose…) The spirit saw emotions like ordinary people saw the objects right in front of them. Well, in this world, anyway.

’Sorry? Why? _I can think of a lot of people with more reason to be sorry than you. But they are, evidently, not the spirits of compassion._ She tried not to sound too grim and refusive, but either way, she couldn’t mask her emotions. Cole knew how she felt – and that obviously hurt him too, which only doubled her bad feelings, adding a little guilt to the original bad mood – and that she wasn’t int he mood to talk with anyone. Yet he stayed. That had to mean something, didn’t it?

’You are sad. And I am here. To make you sadder.’

She had to laugh. ’How could _you_ make me sadder?’ B _y talking about sorrow, suffering, dying people’s last thoughts, lost civilisations’ remaining memories…? Solas?_ Anyway, she was generally glad to see the young boy. Even if he wasn’t a young boy, he looked like one, and, not so rarely, he acted like one. This was one type, the other was the talking-about-sadness-and-last-memories-type. But this recent Cole was neither of these types, and it was strange. What was more strange was the surprisingly human act he just performed: he bowed his head, with a guilty expression on his face.

’I’m leaving.’ His voice was blank, maybe he couldn’t decide what kind of tone to use. It was a sentence he didn’t want to say out loud, and didn’t know how to. These were just words, he needed something more, something more expressive, but that was all this world could provide. That was the reason why he was planning to carry out the action he referred to in his previous statement, namely, leaving.

She didn’t say anything for a long time. She just sat int hat chair with her eyes fixed ont he floor, and felt like it was just slipping away from under her, like life was slipping away from under her, and she was floating towards the end of sanity and the beginning of soothing oblivin. But that would never come, of course. Forgetting, that would just be too easy…

She knew she had to fight these depressive thoughts and carry on like a normal person would do. Like a strong person would do. At other times, she’d managed to get over the grim feelings. Having the worst moments, eventually she found something or someone to turn to and be back in the life of the living again. At most times, she’d been listening. To Josie chit-chatting about her family or their newly developed trading relations with Lord de Whatever and his family. Or visit Cullen and give ideas about what should his dog’s name be. (She’d been doing it for quite a while but none of the ideas proved to be satisfactory.) Or listening to Cole and trying to figure out what his confused phrases and shattered sentence-pieces meant. Or not trying to understand, just accept the first idea of an image that came to her mind and let it continue, change, flourish completely unbound by the rules of logic. Like in a dream. Cole was, after all, a creature of the Dreaming World.

But now Cole was leaving. She knew she would feel so abandoned, because with him gone, another wondrous part of her life would end. Well, not end. Just be far away, secluded, unreachable. Cole might still appear in her dreams though. Like a friendly echo, an old companion, a never-to-be-forgotten light shadow. A ghost that would remind her who she once was. And who she is not, and who she never will be again. Just like Fen’Harel. No, no, she was not going to call him that ridiculous name.

’Well,’ she said in a sarcastic tone that was more Solas’ than hers ’at least you told me you were leaving.’ She didn’t look up. She couldn’t meet those boyish eyes, not now.

’His heart hurts for leaving you,’ Cole said after a long time. ’He is… fighting. With himself. And he thinks he is going to lose.’

Now she looked up, eyes the size of a saucer, glimmering, still red of crying and with an accusing expression. ’Well, don’t you talk to me about him,’ she almost shouted with rage and indignation.’Do not tell me about him, or his feelings, I don’t want to be wondering how sad he might be for what he’s done. _I_ am quite sad about what he’s done and I have a few problems on my own. One of them being the fact that if we _ever_ meet again in this life, than I would have to put an end to his plan, and at the moment, I do not want to know what that will involve. And I don’t want to think about it. I don’t want to think about anything serious right now!'

She fell silent, gasping, surprised by her own violence and impulse. Cole didn’t deserve this, obviously, but she still had too much rage in herself to be able to feel guilt. She buried her face in her hands. Strange. Only one hand. Symmetry broken. (Biggest problem, obviously.)

’When are you leaving?’ It wasn’t important, of course, the answer to this question was irrelevant. But it made her feel like someone who hasn’t just shouted all her complaints out loud. While being an Inquisitor, a person who is supposed to personify a determined leader of some sort, not a girl who feels lost and weak and the only thing she is capable of doing is cry. And shout. At least she hadn’t started breaking fragile things. Yet. Although, given her speciality, she was more likely to set things on fire or crush them into piles of ash.

’It’s not important. I’m leaving now. I will leave tomorrow. I have already left. The decision has been made. Time is non-relevant.’

’Well, that’s cheered me up,’ she sighed. ’One last question. (Last question, that sounded terrible…)’ She took a deep breath again and previously cursed herself for asking this. ’Did you know who Solas really was? _And if you did, why didn’t you tell me? Please, do not say that because I didn’t ask…_ )

She was afraid of not hearing the answer properly through her heartbeat.

’He wouldn’t let me in. He was… he _is_ strong. There is a veil inside. A curtain. I can’t see through it. Just a little. Shapesof lights. Forms. Small sounds. Like an echo. They come, and they are gone. I asked why he would not let me see. I said I wanted to help. He just smiled. Sad smile, old, forgotten. Like watching something frozen in the past. The past doesn’t belong here. _He_ doesn’t belong here.’

’So you didn’t know?’ She sighed of relief which spread inside her like cold water on a burnt wound. The fact that he hadn’t kept this secret from her changed anything. It didn’t seem to have such a huge significance, but it mattered to her.

’No. I liked him. He was a little like me. And he liked me because I was a little like him.’

’You understood him,’ she nodded, suddenly calmer and not realising she was getting deeper into a kind of conversation she had just not too nicely declared not wanting to get involved.

’I sympathised with him. _You_ understood him.’ Sorrow hit her. Again. It came like flowing hot water surrounding her, hurting, but strangely feeling good at the same time. She sank deep into it, enjoying the satisfaction of her heart’s complaint. ’Yes. Alright. THat’s enough of him,’ she declared silently, eager to change the subject as soon as possible. ’Let’s talk about you. Or with you, at least.

’There is nothing more to say. It would be for you like talking to an echo.’

’But you’re still here…’ she insisted, like a disappointed child, but she understood now. She just clinged to the last thread of hope. The last moments. _You are being rather grim and fatalistic,_ a voice said in her head. _Shut up,_ she said to the voice.

’The Fade is callig. It is like being reborn, when I go there. That is my home. Many need me there. They suffer, they scream, afraid, not finding a place to hide. They don’t even know what they’re hiding from. The world is shattering. Or it will be shattering. For some of them the "will be” is the same as "is”. They do not understand. Noisy and silent, light and dark, blinded by chaos. They need a guide. A guardian. Just like people here. But they have you. You can’t be at two places at the same time.’

’Sometimes I wish to…’ _Or only one place. But not this place._ ’You will be a perfect guardian,’ she said, smiling proudly like a mother who sends her son on a long journey.

’I will… miss you.’

’By the grace of Mythal, you are going to make me cry again and hug you. By the way, can I? I mean, hug you. (Crying would probably come anyway.)’ It seemd right to ask. Hugging was, after all, a physical means of expression, while Cole was not. Originally. But ordinary, mortal beings like her sometimes needed to touch one another, lacking other means of expressing themselves. It was their connection to their world. She imagined it that way, at least.

’You would like to, so yes.’ And so she did. She híd her face in Cole’s shoulders. ’But Mythal is…’

’It’s just something that comes to my mouth, Cole.’ she rolled her eyes, feeling like talking to a child, again. But it couldn’t annoy her, just make her unable to decide whether cry or laugh… ’Ever heard humans say ’Oh, Maker’ or ’Andraste’s grace’? You think they all believe in them? Well, some do, but not everyone, obviously.’ Again words. Words were sometimes misused and confusing, but even so, necessary.

She though she must have sounded quite pathetic, trying to talk through her tears. Luckily, no one else could see or hear her. Except for Leliana’s crows, maybe.

Cole put his hands around he. She wondered if it felt strange for him. Once – it seemed a long time ago – she had the decision to make him more like a human, but she couldn’t do it. One cannot make a person who he is not. Cole was ont he edge of two types od existence, but only because he wanted to help a human being. That didn’t make him one. Well, it partly did, but Frestiehla believed that Cole, the young mage was still present and preserved together with the spirit of compassion that had saved him, in one way. Cole could live like who he really is. A spirit. And a human. At the same time. Unseparable, and in no need of separation, because this situation was favourable on both sides.

’Take care of yourself, right?’ She knew that for him it meant taking care of others. She never understood how could one bear so much suffering and feel it like their own. But in Cole’s matter it was beneficial for everyone. If others were happy, Cole was satisfied.

’You are strong. You will make it get better,’ Cole said. She didn’t need to ask what. He didn't say "it will get better." He said "you will make it get better." 

"If you are so sure," she smiled, unbelieving that a few words could make her more confident that easily. She was sure it wasn't just the words. It was something else, something more. "Now please leave when I am not looking. I hate to see people walk away. Farewell, my friend."

"I will see you again." This was his goodbye. When she opened her eyes he'd already left.

"I hope so," she whispered silently and walked towards her balcony, wishing for the welcoming cold sight of the mountains. Suddenly, she heard and saw dark wings approaching. A crow flew on the floor of the balcony attracted by breadcrumbs Cole must have left there.

"You are late for the best part, old fella," she told the bird. It looked up at her. She always felt like they would speak back to her, these birds. There was something in their eyes. She fantasized about them all being shapeshifting mages. "Tell your master she has nothing to worry about. Everything is under control."

And she still had to give Cullen that letter from her sister she accidentally received this morning...


	2. The World Belongs to Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Frestiehla visits her mansion in Kirkwall which she got from Varric, but after the dwarf leaves she is still not alone...  
> She meets Imshael who shows her something. Something that could be. Something that even might be.
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWGtSGM34wc

It was her first time in her Kirkwall mansion, and Varric offered that he would show her around. It didn't take long, of course, the dwarf couldn't tell too long stories about the building itself since he didn't know them, he only knew that the estate had been in good hands and would fit perfectly for his friend. So she tried to appear as grateful as possible, although somehow she felt she wouldn't spend so much time here. Not because she wouldn't like to. But she didn't have the time...

After Varric left, and she was left alone in her mansion, the silence felt suddenly too heavy. Somebody once said that there was nothing more horrible than being alone in a huge place, as in a huge building, for instance, and he was right. There she was. In a wondrous castle. But she felt like a nightingale in a golden cage. She felt as if the walls were watching her every steap. Every breath. As if the beautiful and delicate furnices was accusing her because of being present, accusing her with not belonging here. And if they did, they were right. She belonged among living trees, not dead wood and cold stone. Well, Skyhold had been mostly of stone, too, but... there is stone in the woods... and stone is made of rock, which tends to be usually, well, dead, always, and that is normal. But when living things are turned to frozen, unchanging objects, that feels somehow like.... corrupting them.

And this house just gave her the creeps, even though she knew that the walls couldn’t read her mind... could they? The walls only had ears, they weren’t able to get into one’s thoughts, hopefully.

She decided to leave the thorough examination of her new gift – namely, the estate – for later, when she would have full capacity to at least try to enjoy those few days of her staying, and planned to proceed to her bedroom and perform the only activity she felt herself capable of doing – sleep. She would have had to be at least human to enjoy this place. But it didn’t matter. She received it from a friend, therefore gratitude would be the most dominant emotion attached to it.

Setting off, she took a deep sigh walking along the sun-lit corridors studying the empty white walls, which looked as if they were onyl waiting for paintings to be hung on them. Or maybe not hung. Maybe they wouldn’t even need a frame, they would just be painted onto the bare wall, conserved there for eternity, never to be taken off. And then suddenly the image of a certain circular room in Tarasyl’an Te’las comes to her mind... _Here we are again...._

Awakened from the shock that there is a stranger in her bedroom she took the effort to examine the intruder, and finally got to the conclusion that she knew him. Well, at least, she had seen him before. In Emprise du Lion. She would never forget that outstanding outlook, those deep-set, devilish fox-like eyes... the eyes which without question did not belong to a human being.

"What on Elgar’nan’s name are you doing in my mansion?”, she asked Imshael, for it was undoubtedly him, the desire themon, or the Spirit of Choice, as he preferred to be referred to.

"Your mansion? It doesn’t really seem to feel like home to you,” he teased, having read her mind like a this-world-born person reads words on the pages of a book. She didn’t let him make her upset, for she believed it was just what he wanted. But, why on Earth would he want that? Imshael wasn’t the Spirit of the Unrest of the Soul, was he? No, no, that wasn’t him... but there was a person who needn’t be a spirit to cause the unrest of her soul, in many times, in many cases and in many ways... a person she shouldn’t be thinking of.

"No, it doesn’t feel like home. But it is mine. I got it from a friend, as I believe you already knew. You could find plenty other places to linger in and plenty other people to lure into your little games. You have met me, I know you, so your tricks won’t work on me anymore. They never did’, she declared indignantly, her mind suddenly flooded by a surprising flow of satisfaction. She was keeping Imshael’s gaze captive all the time. But he smiled at her with a kind of confidense she didn’t have any good feelings about. „It is most unwise to declare you _[_ someone after meeting them only once.”

 _Yes. Yes it is_. It is in some cases unwise to do so even if you practically _live_ with someone, it might seem.

”I know your kind.”

"My kind? Spirits? It is not surprising, considering you are a...”

" _Mischievous_ spirits, I meant.”

"I am sure you know mischievous non-spirits too, am I wrong?” Why did everyone bring that up nowadays? Everyone meaning herself, Cole, herself, herself, oh, and herself. And sometimes herself. And now Imshael too. Spirits weren’t beneficial staying around her, it seemed. Neither was herself, evidently, but herself was something she couldn’t be separate from.)

"Right. That was enough of bad jokes for now. Tell me why you came here.”

There was something in his eyes, a light which shone as if saying „I’d rather show you”. But no words were said for a long time, leaving her in tenseness and making her take a deep sigh of impatience. "I want to help”, he finally said, simply, and his tone surprisingly changed from teasing and humorous to a kind of seriousness that suggested the matter would be somehow really important. _You. Help. That would be nice for a change, but I won’t believe it that easily._

The doubting look in her eyes must have encouraged him to provide further explanation. "I came to talk, is it that hard to believe?"

"Yes, it-"

"It was a rhetorical question!... Of course it is. But you need someone who understands you. Everyone does, it makes you confident to be understood. I know what you feel, I know absolutely what you feel, and you need a rest. You cannot go on helping the world when the world turns against you. You need a bit more selfishness, my dear."

"Don't call me that. Vivienne calls me that, and-"

"-you don't like it even from her. Yes." He knew she was annoyed by him knowing her every thought. "But just try... not to be so rejective."

"Rejective against what?" she asked suspiciously.

"Me," the spirit said as if nothing were more obvious.

"Alright, you are a spirit, I am a mortal, it is a poor seduction-attempt."

"Why do you all have to take everything word-for-word?" he sighed. "Just... come closer. And imagine the world's responsibility is not on your shoulders. Because that's the only thing you are thinking about right now."

"It's not... It's not like I can just shake it off!"

He smiled. "That's where you're mistaken. It is."

She already sensed his influence. She felt tired... not the kind of tired you get from a Sloth Demon, not her body but her mind was tired,desperate to find something comforting, and holding on to it if having found some. 

The demon walked closer - since she hadn't moved from her place - and slowly put an arm around her, then another one, and she was unable to resist. She sank into his embrace, into the warm well of oblivion.

***

 

"Do you think it was the right choice?", she asked.

They were staring at the magnificent Lake Calenhad in front of them. Well, at least, she was staring at the lake, Cullen might have been examining the house they only just bought after a very long time deciding where they want to live: in the estate in Kirkwall Frestiehla got from Varric (the... the viscount... it was very hard getting used to), or, in Cullen's family's home residence, or, maybe somewhere else. And she was an experimenting type. So she choose somewhere else.

They had always liked lakes. Both of them.

She liked all kinds of water. Suddenly, she remembers. The little island. Lady’s Rest. ’It drawns sorrow from you like you drawn water from a well.’ She was standind there. On the shore. Thinking....

Sorrow. Its grip squeezes her heart hardly, it feels for a moment as if she was right there, right then. The lake becomes the sea, just for a moment. The sunlight shatters on the surface, the waves float away, then new ones come, over and over again, always repeating, never ceasing. They form something. A shape. An image. A _feeling._

"Is something wrong, my darling?" Her husband’s voice. Her husband’s caring, loving voice. Her head feels dizzy. She closes her eyes and shakes her head and the image – the something, the out-of-place fragment in the back of her mind vanishes like a candlelight from a gust of wind. ’No-nothing. I’m just a bit dizzy.’ She turns to him with a reassuring smile. A smile that would make him believe anything. He will think her disorientation was caused by... her or him, the baby she is carrying under her heart. And maybe it was because of that, who knows? She is not going mad, it is quite normal to feel a bit awkward after staring in the water for minutes... Maybe she is tired a bit.

"Just tell me if you need a rest." Rest. Rest. Lady’s Rest. Whis it called Lady’s Rest? Who was the Lady? Telana? It was her name. The elven mage. The Inquisitor’s lover. Telanadas. Nothing is inevitable.

’Alright, I officially declare that you are going to bed now."

She gives him a grateful smile and obeys. The house greets him with a familiar atmosphere. It is still a bit strange, as every new place is. But she knews they will get used to it. Every little piece of it will guard a unique memory. It will be their home, their place, their life, only theirs, looking at the little bed next to the wall she will always think of a little child sleeping in it sweetly, dreaming about somewhere beautiful and far aways, and that child would be hers, just as she always wanted.

Hours pass swiftly, like spring birds, the day goes by without her even noticing it. She feels a little guilty about wasting precious hours of her life, but cannot help it, she is tired, her limbs feel as if tons of weights were pulling them down.

***

She is lying on the bed. Again. The same bed, the same house, and yes, all that she’s predicted became true, there is not a single point in this house without something attached to it. Other than dust, of course. There is that, too. A lot of dust. This is not a stone castle, after all.

She got used to this secluded life easier than expected. She often spends a few hours reading Varric’s book about the Inquisition when she has time. Of course, she’s read it, over the years. A few times. A few dozen times. A few hundred times maybe. She wonders how many times one could read a book if they lived forever. Would they forget eventually? Would it appear all new when they read it again?

The children are playing outside, she can hear their voice even from here. She will never get used to the feeling. It seems so unbelievable. There was a time when life seemed as if nothing ever could get normal. And now here she is, with nothing specific to do, and everything she ever wanted. She doesn’t even have the burden to do the housework, because her husband might do even that instead of her. Well, that she often thinks a little too much and deprives him from the possibility, but not every time.

She misses her companions sometimes. They dispersed in the world, every one of them tied to a specific connection and with something to spend their hopefully long enough time to deal with. They come by year after year but this quantity of being together is nothing compared to the times when they spent each of their days planning the next step.

Aand, yes. When you suddenly get a lot of free time, first you have no idea what to do with it. Here she is, the perfect example. She could do anything in the world, and she is lying on a bed, trying, what, to sleep? With eyes open? Dammit, the last time she tried to sleep with her eyes open was at the age of nine. Typiclal, she had too many thoughts in her head then already. That was the life of a would-e First to the Keeper...

She wanders back to her early years, to the place she was born and where she grown up. The world opened slowly, like when your view widens as you climb higher and higher towards the top of a hill. As the Keeper taught her about magic, and not just about magic, about everything she knew of the world, the boundaries of knowledge gradually collapsed, but at the same time, other boundaries were built which helped her through life. Although, some of them proved to be unnecessary. Some of them were only hinders, which hid true reality from her...

Her old forest, old and ancient, but being born every spring, never tiring in the trials of life, not unlike its people. She wants to find a place farther from the clan, a secluded area where she can practice undisturbed. Early spring flowers freckle the fresh green glass, she tries to evade them with every step intending not to hurt them.

The trees, bushes thicken, it’s getting harder and harder to move forward, but she knows the traces. Thorns stick into her clothes and they don’t spare her skin either, she would look dirty and bruised when she gets home, but nevermind that, that’s worth it... She is now so close to the place.

And, turning away the last branch, the space is open in front of her. She arrives to the clearing. With a relieved sigh, she takes her magic staff in her hands looking at the enourmous statue of Fen’Harel in the middle of the clearing. But as she does that, she suddenly stops. Not because of fear, because of something else. The large stone statue lies in a position as to stare in the eyes of the arrivals.

Statues are famous of not having real eyes. Just blank, grey, eye-shaped... somethings, which stare into the void. That is what makes them so eerie. But than why is this one looking at her as if watching right into her soul?

Suddenly, she realizes she cannot move. She is paralyzed by that gaze, a grip is holding her in her place, like a magical bond, tying her to that exact spot forever. It reaches into her heart. It wants to tell her something. She’s afraid, she wants to run away, to turn around and flee, but cannot move... And then she awakes gasping and sweating and staring into Cullen’s face, with his hands stroking her hair kindly, than her face, muttering smooth words of calming and comfort.

She is staring dazed in a feeling of not knowing if it is a dream or reality. But then, the voices, the familiar sounds tell her that it _is_ reality.

"Are you alright, honey?”

"Yes, sure, I’m okay. What was I... was I saying something? While I was sleeping?” She tries not to look as ashamed as she really is. She is starting to get fed up with... with what exactly? Her mind playing tricks? She didn’t have any strange dreams recently,what... what is happening?

"Yeah. You said ’Let me go’. Only this. Again and again.”

"Oh.” She falls silent for a second. "No, I don’t remember. Nevermind. Pretend I am not being strange, okay? I just need a little rest, that’s all. Go help Mia with that mabari, would you?”

She is, again, left alone in the house, with her thoughts.

As the vivid light swarms inside through the large windows, an intensity of glowing the people of the Old World could never possibly experience, she is thinking how lucky she is. There is a weird feeling inside her that in the last years she hasn’t even stopped to look around, watch and see, since what was around her was what she achieved. Her heart should burst with pride and happiness. And then she still hasn’t looked at the children.

They mean the most. The whole world would wait and hide patiently in a dark cave for her to spare a gaze upon it, because the first to get her attention would always be these little creatures of delight and miracle, directly close to her. And she is not planning on changing that. And, really, children tend to grow up. What will she do if they do? There is going to be one point when they choose their own way of life and separate from their parents. What will she do then? „Well, you can always have more children,” some people, Sera, for example, would say, but it is easy for her...

This is just ridiculous. The mighty Inquisitor, worrying about the day when her children grow up. Mighty Inquisitor. She repeats it all over in her head but it doesn’t sound right, not like years before. Things have changed. Firs of them all, her, and her position, therefore these nominations slowly but surely decreased to the level of a simple title. A title, which used to mean a lot to her, but people have always been a priority to titles.

Except she has a letter to write. Actually, she has more letters to write. That’s what happens if you know a lot of people but can spend little time with them because you live far away. Well, at least the gaze of the wolf won’t haunt her anymore...

She sits to her writing table, prepares some ink and... and focusing just won’t work, not now, not when her family is out on the open, fresh air.

She decides to leave her undoubtedly important and advisable duties for later and tend to a much more amusing activity, namely, go outside and see the children. She lets her halfly written sheet of paper lying on the table, gets up and steps outside. The blazing sun paints everything golden and warm. Especially her heart. Mia, her only Mia (although there is another Mia, but she is not _hers_ ) is just getting involved in a chat with her siblings. (She has only two of them. Until now, at least.) One little skinny girl with her mother’s build but shining golden hair, and a boy who looks almost exactly like his father, but with clear black hair and ice blue eyes. Not the type of ice that is cold and cruel but rather decorative and beautiful.

A mabari is watching them, sitting just by the shore of the lake, only inches from the water, but he looks much more afraid of the bunch of people than the water. He stares at them with a worryful expression, to Mia’s obvious dissatisfaction. Even when Cullen approaches him, he whines and backs towards the lake. He is a new dog, the old one, the true friend of the family passed away a few weeks back, but Mia and her sister couldn’t wait a day without a new pet. Except, maybe the new pet thinks otherwise.

"Mum, he is afraid of me,” Mia complains, sweeping her shiny dark hair from in front of her eyes.

"I’m sure he just needs time,’ Cullen saiys, trying to smooth things, like always. _Everybody needs time,_ she thinks, _but time requires a lot of toil._

"Isn’t there a magic spell to make him like me?” the young girl asks, receiving a disapproving glance from his father. Cullen never likes when she talks like that about magic.

"That would not be honest,” her mother says, and that seems to suffice her, at least for now.

"But... Why should anyone be afraid of _me_?” Mia inquires, completely aware of her absolute unscaryness.

"„He is young, every young thing can be afraid of a bigger stranger, don’t day?” Frestiehla says, walking to her daughter, gripping her under the armpits and putting every strengh into the motion, rising her up from the ground into her arms. Mia isn’t easy, and she would grow up to be a lot non-easier, being a human child, or at least half-human, which, biologically, equals completely human. Her selfish part often feels sorry for this, but some sacrifices have to be made.

Her daughter seems to be comforted by her touch and able to forgive the uneagerness of the mabari. Mia rests her head on her shoulder, and mutters: „Will you walk with me in the forest?” She can’t say no to that for two reasons; first, she loves the forest, second, she loves her daughter and wouldn’t deny anything from her unless it is entirely necessary.

Passing through the edge of the Wilds, the air becomes less suffocating, as the trees provide a small level of freshness to themselves and other creatures living among them. Or, trespassing, like they are now.

„Will you take me to the clearing?”, Mia asks, and she nods. They have a special place near here, not too far, but separate enough to make them feel healthily secluded. For Mia, it might seem like a different world. And she would be right.

So she walks along the well-known trace lit by lightshafts, step by step, until the light becomes stronger and finally stepping through the gate created by two bowed branches they reached The Clearing, which is literally bathing in sunlight and flowerscent.

But suddenly she has to stop and gasp of shock and astonishment. There is a wolf standing in the middle of the clearing.

Just like in her dream, she freezes, and almost forgets the child she’s holding in her arms. She is staring into the wild animal’s eyes. They seem... unreal. Instead of plannig to attack them, or to withdraw, the wolf seems to intend neither. It just remains there, watching them. Sadly. And beutifully. Its eyes. What colour are they? She couldn’t tell. Yellow. Gold. Blue. Grey. All of it at the same time. And its fur. At one moment, shining white, the other, pitch black, and sometimes grey, like heavy clouds on a stormy day.

She’s not sure where she is anymore. Or when. Despair stretches its hands after her heart and grips at it after reaching it. Everythings seems to slow down, the birds’ singing disappears, then the leaves on the trees fall down, although in the colour of evergreen. They turn into nothing but grey ash. Reality seems to shatter into millions of pieces. Something is pulling her out . Out of... out of this comfortable...

_lie?_

"Mom,” A familiar sound is pulling her back. But it’s weak. It’s weak and it’s like it’s only her mind creating it. Like Mia wasn’t even here, she was only here a second ago because she wanted her to be.

There is no one there. She isn’t holding anyone, her hands are just suspended in the air... where is Mia? _Where is my daughter?!_ Her mind screams, and she turns around in hysteria. But then she sees her. The dark-haired girl, standing on the ground, watching shyly in the direction of the wolf.

"Will he hurt us? Is he the Dread Wolf?” She forces herself to look into the wolf’s eyes, and she knows. Her heart almost breaks like a fragile piece of glass, but she knows, she sees now. She doesn’t feel tears forming but now they’re running down her face. Her knees feel week but it doesn’t matter, they don’t have to carry her weight, because she is floating. The ground has disappeared from under her. Slowly, everything will disappear and fade into... what is it, some kind of light?

"Yes, he is.” She says. To herself. "And you are no one.” She can’t look at her. She shuts her eyes hardly, she cannot look at...

 

She cannot look at Imshael’s astonished face as he is trying to figure out what to say.


End file.
